M16 The Eagle Nebula Toward the Center of Our Galaxy
M16 The Eagle Nebula Toward the Center of Our Galaxy. It's a crowded neighborhood as you look toward the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Stars everywhere. But a timed astrophotography image will reveal M16, the Eagle Nebula.
This image was produced from a stack of exposures captured at a Bortle 4 site in Landers, CA, USA on a New Moon night. Telescope: Explore Scientific ED102 FL 714mm F7. Guiding was with an Orion 50mm Guide Scope FL 242mm, and a ZWO ASI290MC for the guide camera, and with PHD2 auto-guiding software. Mount: Celestron Advanced VX. Main imaging camera: ASI294MC PRO cooled to -5C. Exposures: 124 x 45s with Gain at 280 and Bin 1 x 1. No darks, flats or bias frames. Processed in PixInsight. Slight crop. Polar alignment was with SharpCap Pro.
This was an experiment using short exposures with high gain. Many use this technique and get good results. It seems to be a quick way to negate bad, or no, auto-guiding. But I still prefer to use exposures of 180s-240s, or even 300s for most targets like this.
M16 The Eagle Nebula Toward the Center of Our Galaxy
M16 The Eagle Nebula Toward the Center of Our Galaxy. It's a crowded neighborhood as you look toward the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Stars everywhere. But a timed astrophotography image will reveal M16, the Eagle Nebula.
This image was produced from a stack of exposures captured at a Bortle 4 site in Landers, CA, USA on a New Moon night. Telescope: Explore Scientific ED102 FL 714mm F7. Guiding was with an Orion 50mm Guide Scope FL 242mm, and a ZWO ASI290MC for the guide camera, and with PHD2 auto-guiding software. Mount: Celestron Advanced VX. Main imaging camera: ASI294MC PRO cooled to -5C. Exposures: 124 x 45s with Gain at 280 and Bin 1 x 1. No darks, flats or bias frames. Processed in PixInsight. Slight crop. Polar alignment was with SharpCap Pro.
This was an experiment using short exposures with high gain. Many use this technique and get good results. It seems to be a quick way to negate bad, or no, auto-guiding. But I still prefer to use exposures of 180s-240s, or even 300s for most targets like this.